Just like last year's featured desktops, this list is made up of the most popular posts in 2010. We've had some really amazing desktops this year. If anything stands out and you want more info, just click the title to visit the original post.

Reader Saad Baig created the 8Bar Rainmeter skin to a Windows taskbar with integrated widgets. It's simple, attractive, and leaves plenty of space to get things done. This Windows 8 concept desktop took the number one position this year, proving elegant simplicity makes for some of the best desktops.

The Gaia desktops keep coming back with new and beautiful updates. In fact, you'll find the Windows version of Gaia '10 later in this post. Reader gabriela2400 used the Gaia customization to create this custom Linux interface that's peppered with little bits of information and plenty of eye candy.

Reader Darko 2 brings us the dark and intense Duality Desktop. Rocketdock provides the straightforward, transparent dock while the ecqlipse 2 icon set blends in with the background. As usual, Rainmeter integrates all the nice stats you see on the right side. The look makes for a great contrast between light and dark.

The Optimum desktop comes from reader nitzua, who makes use of my favorite color scheme as of late: white, black, gray, and red. Despite the minimalist look and feel, quite a few tools went into making this desktop possible (including multiple resource hacks) to bring the contemporary design style to have last inch of the user interface.

Reader gabriela2400 is back again on our best of 2010 list with the "Listen and Feel" desktop, showing us a perfect example of how little you need to make a really stunning digital workspace. A few widgets provide some basic information (like the time) as well as a slim and handy digital music player.

The Monochrome Grey desktop is zalary's take on a clean, focused Windows workspace. A little Launchy, a little Rocketdock, and some Rainmeter and other modifications pack a lot of information into a really stunning layout.

Your friendly neighborhood zackshackleton has created the SpiderMac desktop. At first glance it looks just like a comic, but check out the speech bubbles—they're system statistics and other handy widgets. Little was required outside of Geektool and Yahoo! Widgets to make this clever desktop possible. With so few customization tools still actively being developed on the Mac, it's pretty impressive.

Reader McG00gles offers up MechHUD desktop, making your desk chair feel more like the pilot seat of a mecha. The entire customization comes as a Rainstaller so you can easily bring this customization to your own computer.

Reader t.click has turned the Opera web browser to glass, making it the sole focus of his machine. A completely transparent skin makes this possible, allowing Windows 7's Aero to render the entire interface as shiny, transparent glass.

Reader Mango Sango brings us another variation of the Gaia desktop, this time on Windows 7. Several components help to make this Gaia customization possible, including a custom Gaia skin for Launchy, an earthy desktop photo, and plenty of custom icons and widgets.

The ChoKolate Linux desktop comes from reader naaamo2004, creating a simple minimalist interface with just one color. Plenty of custom work was necessary, including a matching Firefox skin, to create a really cool interface with just one color.

For more awesome desktops, check out our most popular featured desktops of 2009
and 2008
.

You can contact Adam Dachis, the author of this post, at adachis@lifehacker.com. You can also follow him on Twitter and Facebook.